Monday, April 25, 2011

Another Weird High School Fad...

I found the weirdest thing/fad in my high school to be smoking cigarettes in the bathroom stalls.

Now, is it just me or did every school always have a group of kids smoking cigarettes in the bathroom stalls? I mean, I personally never truly got it. Why the bathroom? It is gross, it smells gross and it leaves students at a much greater risk at getting caught by a teacher or an administrator.

The major excuse I have gotten for why many students smoke in the doorless stalls of the public school bathrooms is that they were not permitted to leave the school premises without an official pass from an administrator. I suppose this makes sense. These kids in my book are somewhat justified and in the clear.

However, at my high school, students were always permitted to leave school grounds whether it was to run to the parking lot or grab something they left at soccer practice the previous day. Therefore, this was never an excuse at all. The students [and I don't mean to stereotype, but it was usually the Emo crowd] just happened to ALWAYS mark the bathroom stalls as their territory for smoking their cigarettes, typically the last stall in the row, farthest from the door.

Personally, I am a nonsmoker with nothing against cigarette smokers. However, when it's sixth period and I really need to pee, walking into a cloud of cigarette smoke is just a royal pain in the ass. Any thoughts?

Wow, I had no idea this was actually done. I've seen this in old 80s movies and 90s sitcoms, but I'm shocked that people actually did this. At my school we had "smokers island." It was a land median in the middle of the road across the street from my high school, and all the smokers would park themselves on that island during their smoke breaks. Looking back I thought it was kind of funny seeing people huddled together smoking on a little "island", but that's far better than people interrupting my private bathroom breaks by smoking in the school's bathroom.

I went to a private school, so I never had to experience this, but since we are on the topic of smoking, I absolutely HATE when I'm at the bus stop and people are so rude to stand next to me and blow f***ing smoke in my face! Ok I'm done venting.

I think this may be a girls-only thing. But I went to an all-guy private high school, so I don't know. I started smoking when I was in high school, and, since smoking, I will say that having a drag in a bathroom (not a public bathroom) is strangely awesome. It's like having a shower beer. In fact I may partake in both things tonight when I get back to my house. Perhaps this harkens to some idea of an ultimate comfort, some trifecta of sorts. Drinking, smoking, sh*tting. All the things anyone, at any age can partake in.

My Middle school allowed us to go off campus to have smoke breaks and on field trips we were allowed to smoke as much as we wanted. This was in the 80's and I am sure there would be a number of law suits if this was allowed now. I hate my middle school for allowing this to happen as I still smoke . =(